Wednesday, November 4, 2009

We had hopes for a pretty sunset tonight - clearing to the west, clouds overhead. It never developed into one of the postcard-gorgeous ones that the Southwest is known for. But one thing there were lots of - bats! I've mentioned their local abundance at twilight in previous blogs posts, but they seemed more abundant tonight. There seemed to be a couple dozen within 100 yards, so there were always a couple at any given moment against the sky. Since I had camera in hand waiting for the sunset, I tried taking shots of some of them. However the first thing you notice is that they do NOT fly like birds. They seem to change directions randomly over a time scale of a second or so. It was getting dark enough and they were moving fast and randomly enough that auto focus was worthless, so focused on a tree 30 yards away and shot a dozen or so shots with the telephoto, hoping to get one or two good ones. Well, these don't count as good ones, but are good enough to post as a blog topic. "Needs More Work", is how I would categorize these results!

I am not a bat expert, though I am a bat fan. These are likely Mexican Freetail bats - pretty common in these parts. I love observing them in the twilight during my walks. They are very beneficial for the environment - at least if you don't like flying insects, as they consume their weight in bugs nightly. There is, in fact, a "Bat Night" here in Tucson, complete with snacks and live music a couple miles from us here where Campbell Avenue crosses the Rillito Wash. A colony of upwards of 40,000 live in expansion cracks under the bridge. I've never attended, but saw it in the events section of the local paper. There is also a short, spectacular video on Youtube, of their exit from under the bridge. Be sure to check that out, and in the meantime, I'll work on getting better pictures!

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Credit where credit is due...

All photos are by Dean and Melinda Ketelsen - even the really cool astrophotography ones. Granted, some pics have come from the Internet...such as pictures of actors, or of Miss Tohono O'odham, etc. However, the astronomy pics, as well as the bird pics are all original - compliments of Dean, and sometimes Melinda too! Layout, editing, and continual tweaking (I think they call that "desk top publishing"), well, that would be the work of "I know I can make this better" Melinda!